The UK Parliament has launched an internal investigation into a potential conflict of interest involving Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Details of the conflict of interest have not been disclosed, but according to several British newspapers the investigation concerns a company providing services for children, the Koru Kidsin which Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty is a shareholder: the company is among the beneficiaries of some public funding announced last month. The investigation will serve to understand whether or not Sunak has violated the Parliamentary Code of Conduct British, which among other things provides that deputies declare, in an “open and frank” manner, “any relevant interest in any proceeding of the Chamber or its Commissions”.
The investigation was initiated by Daniel Greenberg, the current Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, an independent official of the British Parliament who is responsible for monitoring compliance with the Parliamentary Code of Conduct.
On 28 March, during a hearing with a parliament committee, Labor MP Catherine McKinnell he had asked to Sunak if he had any interests to declare regarding the government’s childcare policies, which Sunak had denied. A few days later, also following some controversy in the press, Sunak had sent a letter to the commission saying that he had already declared his possible conflict of interest in thelist of ministerial interests, of which the updated version has not yet been published. At the moment the possible conflict of interest on the Koru Kids is not even listed in the register of interests of parliamentariansa second list different from the first and compiled by all the deputies.